Collected Works of V. I. Lenin - Vol. 13 - From Marx to Mao

368V. I. LENIN1. THE RIGHTS AND THE OCTOBRISTSThe stand taken by the Rights on the agrarian question wasundoubtedly best expressed by Count Bobrinsky in thespeech he delivered on March 29, 1907 (18th session ofthe Second Duma). In a dispute with the Left-wing priestTikhvinsky about the Holy Scriptures and their commandmentsto obey the powers that be, and recalling “the cleanestand brightest page in Russian history” (1289)*—theemancipation of the serfs (we shall deal with this lateron)—the count approached the agrarian question “withopen visor”. “About 100 or 150 years ago the peasants,nearly everywhere in Western Europe, were as povertystricken,degraded, and ignorant as our peasants are today.They had the same village communes as we have in Russia,with division of land per head, that typical survivalof the feudal system” (1293). Today, continued the speaker,the peasants in Western Europe are well off. The questionis, what miracle transformed “the poverty-stricken, degradedpeasant into a prosperous and useful citizen who has respectfor himself and for others”? “There can be only oneanswer: that miracle was performed by individual peasantownership, the form of ownership that is so detested here,on the Left, but which we, on the Right, will defend withall the strength of our minds, with all the strength of ourearnest convictions, for we know that in ownership lie thestrength and future of Russia” (1294). “Since the middle oflast century agronomic chemistry has made wonderful ...discoveries in plant nutrition, and the peasants abroad—small owners equally [??] with big ones—have succeededin utilising these scientific discoveries, and by employingartificial fertilisers have achieved a still further increasein crop yield; and today, when our splendid black earthyields only 30 to 35 poods of grain, and sometimes not evenenough for seed, the peasants abroad, year after year, getan average yield ranging from 70 to 120 poods, dependingon the country and climatic conditions. Here you havethe solution of the agrarian problem. This is no dream, no* Here and elsewhere the figures indicate the pages StenographicRecord.